Is the Amazon Kindle a ‘tipping point’ product?

I’m a fan of the Amazon Kindle, however I feel sure the company would prefer that I keep my version of praise for the product to myself. And, to judge from some e-mail I’ve received knee-jerking past observations I’ve written about the device, some of my "fellow" fans of the Kindle also prefer I shut-the-praise up.

I guess I’m an enigma to traditional eBook/ePaper lovers because, get this, I like my Kindle but am less than convinced there is much a future for a dedicated eBook reading device. In other words, the love I have for my Kindle is the kind of love that only a mother of a, how can I say this?, unfortunate-looking baby could understand.

So as they typically draw arrows, why do I bring up this topic yet again ?

Because the New York Times today asks , "Is the electronic book approaching the tipping point?" The story reports on the confused ("energizing yet unnerving") response book industry people attending the giant "BookExpo" trade show had because someone (Amazon) has finally come up with an eBook reader and business model that may actually work.

Around ten years ago, I attended that very same trade show in Los Angeles. Ironically, eBooks were getting the same kind of unnerving response then. Also getting the same unnerving response the year I attended was Barnes & Noble and Amazon — the show is filled with independent booksellers who are perpetually unnerved by Barnes & Noble and Amazon — for everything.

As the New York Times story reports, eBooks have been around 40 years. And the concept of ePaper (thin displays that replicate the properties of real paper) is right up there with flying cars and TV watches as the most predicted technology never to make it to the mass market.

So, if by "tipping point," the New York Times writer means, has the eBook reader finally had a "proof of business concept," I’d have to answer that the Kindle is, yes, a tipping point product. However, I’d place it along side the Motorola brick phone in the "works-great-but-can-we-get-something-that-does-this-that-is-less-goofy" department?

And the Kindle tipping point moment came just in time, I might add. I think many in the digital book fan nation had all but given up on the mass-market viability of eBook readers.

In perhaps the most dramatic display of what I mean is the rather untimely release of the book "Print is Dead " by Jeff Gomez. I say "untimely" because it was published (on paper, no less) at precisely the same time as the Kindle was being announced — last November. Yet if one reads the book (as I have, on my Kindle), one is struck by the irony of how many thousands of words Gomez devotes to explaining why "the eBook revoluton didn’t happen." In a long chapter (7), Gomez, in effect, surrenders the notion that any eBook reader will ever succeed in order to support his central argument — that text delivered in a digital form will ultimately render paper and ink "dead."

So rather than helping Gomez prove his point that "print is dead," the success of the Kindle dramatically placed his technology forecasting credentials into question. (I’m sure he’ll reclaim his cred when he re-writes Chapter 7 for the Kindle version of the book — and takes out the "eBooks are doomed" part and that part where he quotes "the experts" who claim it will take a $1-$2 price point for eBooks to ever catch on.) (Later clarification: Despite my snarky comments regarding Gomez’ book, in general, I found that I agree with much of what he writes — except I still think the title is bad and, frankly, not what the book is truly about.)

So yes, I’m a Kindle lover who thinks, as I’ve said many times , while its hardware and interface design are inexcusably unfortunate (ugly-bad), its function (200 books in my briefcase) and the pricing of books one can purchase and download to it wirelessly (never having to attach it to a computer) makes me overlook the way I constantly lose my place in a book because of its peculiar button placement or the way the fricking back panel randomly falls off the device.

Yes, I love my Kindle — but here’s where I lose my invitation to join its fan club. I don’t think Amazon is going to be the long-term winner in the category. Like the Motorola brick, the Kindle is a great proof of concept. But in the end, the product that ultimately owns this category will be much, much more than a mere eBook reader using ePaper technology.

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Launched in August, 2000, RexBlog.com is the personal blog of Rex Hammock, founder/ceo of Hammock Inc., a customer media and marketing services company founded in 1991 in Nashville. Rex is also founder/helper-in-chief of SmallBusiness.com.(...)